Nineteen, comes, then openly evanescent it goes,
The perhaps of nineteen petals on a Damask rose,
Three day’s past a Hunter’s Moon
Yet still the Autumn Damask blooms,
Aloft the Geese depart in southbound skein
With hope that we might count a brisk nineteen,
Up above our late fragrant bloom of Castile,
Migrant avian flocks still wedge and wheel
Soon to abandon this watery northern sun,
Nineteen days, not more, to sultry Sierra Leone.
A.McTiernan
Happy Birthday Hope